“Beer me,” Buell said.
“Oh, Buell,” Maryalice said. She hauled a big plastic zip bag up off the floor, some kind of advertising giveaway, and rummaged inside. Came up with a tall sweaty can of something she passed to Creedmore over Rydell’s lap, under the counter. Creedmore popped it, held it to his ear, as if admiring the hiss of carbonation. a, t.iii a •a~ emma. “Sound of breakfast cooking,” he said, then drank. Rydell sat there, chewing his leathery eggs. so you go to this site,” Laney was saying, “give them my name, ‘Cohnspace-Laney,’ cap C, cap L, first four digits of this phone number, and ‘Berry’ That’s your nickname, right?”
“Actually it’s my name,” Rydell said. “Family name on my mother’s side.” He was seated in a capacious but none too clean cubicle in the former bank’s restroom. He’d gone there to get away from Creedmore and company, and so he could ring Laney back. “S0 I give them that. What’ll they give me?” Rydell looked up at his bag, where he’d hung it on the sturdy chrome hook on the cubicle door. He hadn’t wanted to leave it out in the restaurant.
‘They’ll give you another number. You take that to any banking machine, show it picture ID, key the number. It’ll issue you a credit chip. Should be enough to hold you for a few days, but if it’s not, phone me.”
Something about being in there made Rydell feel like he was in one of those old-fashioned submarine movies, the part where they shut off the engines and wait, really quiet, for the depth charges they know are on the way. It was that quiet in here, probably because the bank was so solidly built; the only sound was the running of the toilet tank, which alone.”
not be.” he thought added to the illusion.
“Okay,” Rydehl said, “assuming all that works, who is it you’re looking for, and what was that you said about people dying?”
“European male, mid to late fifties, probably has a military background but that was a long time ago.”
“That narrows it to maybe a million probables, up here in NoCal “How this is going to work, Rydell, is he’ll find you. I’ll tell you where to go and what to ask for, and one thing and another will bring you to his attention.” “Sounds too easy.”
“Coming to his attention will be easy. Staying alive once you do will 63 Rydell considered. “So what am I supposed to do for you when he finds me?”
“Ask him a question.”
‘What question?”
“I don’t know yet,” Laney said, “I’m working on it.”
“Laney,” Rydell said, “what’s this all about?”
“If I knew that,” Laney said, and suddenly he sounded very tired, “I wouldn’t have to be here.” He fell silent. Clicked off.
“Laney?”
Rydehl sat listening to the toilet run. Eventually he got up, took his bag down from the hook, and exited the cubicle. He washed his hands in a trickle of cold water that ran into a black imitation marble sink crusted with yellowish industrial soap and made his way back along a corridor made narrow by cartons of what he took to be janitorial supplies.
He hoped that Creedmore and the country music mamma would’ve forgotten about him, gone away. –
Not so. The woman was working on her own plate of eggs, while Creedmore, his beer clipped between his denim thighs, was staring balefully at the two enormous, gypsum-dusted construction workers.
“Hey,” Creedmore said, as Rydell walked past, carrying his bag.
“Hey, Buell,” Rydell said, heading for the door to the street.
“Hey, where you going?”
“To work,” RydeIl said.
“Work,” he heard Creedmore say and “shit,” but the door swung shut behind him, and he was on the street. 64 15. BACK UP HERE
CHEVETTE stood beside the van, watching Tessa release God’s Little Toy. The camera platform, like a Mylar muffin or an inflated coin, caught the day’s watery light as it rose, wobbling, then leveled out, swaying, at fifteen feet or so.
Chevette felt very strange, being here, seeing this: the concrete tank traps, beyond them the impossible shape of the bridge itself. Where she